Desertshore is really only the jumping-off point (Beachy Head?) for an album of ultimately rather bleak electronic songs.... The strongest performances, in fact, come on the two tracks vocalled by Cosey herself.

Desertshore is less a report than a dramatisation, an upending of their defiantly aura-less usurping of traditional performance modes in favour of a theatricality that feels more selfconsciously like a big event than the DIY/samizdat style of old.... [The Final Report] fares a little better, though again, it's a shame XTG have framed it in the form of a report.[Dec 2012, p.69]

By fulfilling their dear friend's wishes, on Desertshore Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti have paid him a glorious, beautiful tribute that, like Nico's original album, celebrates the glowing eddies of sex and life and death.